The Senate
Motion Pertaining to the Situation in Gaza--Debate Continued
October 28, 2025
Honourable senators, I wish to thank Senator Woo for introducing this motion. We have seen what happens when the world looks away, when international law is ignored and humanitarian norms are cast aside. When journalists are barred, when infrastructure is destroyed and when aid is weaponized, civilians suffer. They pay the price with their lives, their dignity and their mental well-being.
According to Save the Children, at least one Palestinian child has been killed every hour on average by Israeli forces in Gaza during the past two years of violence, with the number of children killed now surpassing 20,000, or 2% of Gaza’s child population.
Over a thousand of the children killed were under the age of one. Four hundred and fifty of those babies were born and killed during the violence. I want to repeat that, colleagues: 450 babies were brought into this world and left it during this genocide, 450 babies who never knew peace for even a single day.
These are some of the facts we’ve heard over the past year from fellow Canadians who have served as doctors and humanitarians in Gaza. Many in this chamber have taken advantage of informal meetings to hear the stories of Canadians who have returned. Many of you have come and heard first-hand accounts of the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. We have heard from organizations like Save the Children – whom I quoted a moment ago — Oxfam, the Red Cross, Doctors Against Genocide, Reporters Without Borders, CARE Canada, UNICEF and many others.
We have heard that people are suffering not only from bombardment and starvation but from the severe psychological trauma of displacement and loss. These are the invisible wounds of war.
I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge that those invisible wounds extend to the humanitarians we heard from as well, those who sacrificed a part of themselves when they volunteered to go abroad. Not a single person who served on the ground in Gaza will escape psychologically unharmed. Not one will be immune to what they endured, and yet they did it. Then they returned home and shared their stories.
With independent journalists largely barred from Gaza, these humanitarians have become the witnesses, reliving unimaginable memories, often breaking down as they speak. We owe them a debt of gratitude, and I think we owe them a response.
Colleagues, we cannot change the past, but we must examine and acknowledge our role in it. I believe we must respond to the moment and shape what happens next.
The World Health Organization estimates that one in five people in conflict-affected populations lives with a mental health disorder, and about one in ten suffers a moderate to severe condition.
In Gaza, even before this latest war, over half of all children showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a 2020 study in Frontiers in Psychiatry. Following months of siege and bombardment, UNICEF warns that virtually every child now shows signs of trauma and “toxic stress.”
The United Nations reports that nearly 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced and faces chronic and unrelenting trauma. Recent clinical data underline the scale of this mental health emergency.
A 2025 peer-reviewed study entitled “The Psychological Toll of War and Forced Displacement in Gaza” found that 79% of respondents reported moderate or severe anxiety, 84% reported depression and nearly 68% met full diagnostic criteria for post‑traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, under the DSM-5, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Almost two thirds suffered significant symptoms of all three conditions at once. The majority were unemployed and displaced into camps or shelters, and more than one in five had lost a first-degree relative.
The researchers concluded that Gaza’s internally displaced population is facing “. . . very high rates of psychiatric disorders . . . .” and that mental health interventions “. . . must be prioritized to support society’s long-term recovery.”
As terrible as these statistics are, they are not unexpected. We know what prolonged terror and deprivation do to the human mind: They fray communities, fuel despair and make recovery far more difficult.
In Bosnia, 10 years after the war ended, roughly 1 in 10 citizens was still living with PTSD. In Rwanda, survivors of the 1994 genocide continue to battle depression and flashbacks. A 2018 study on the population found 35% had major depression and 28% had PTSD.
Former senator Roméo Dallaire, who has publicly struggled with PTSD following the genocide, put it this way:
. . . there’s no time factor [for PTSD] . . . . A very close colleague of mine, who was with me over there, ran a program for us with veterans. . . . He fundamentally crashed—22 years later. The stress was so powerful that he could not sustain it and he nearly lost his mind. . . .
Trauma does not stop when the conflict ends. People and families carry the weight of grief long after the world moves on. For Palestinians today, their trauma is layered: war upon war, loss upon loss, famine, destruction, displacement and death. People returning from Gaza have told me that Palestinians feel abandoned by the global community. They are in despair.
As Canadians, we take pride in being a nation that believes in human rights and international law. But those principles mean little if we abandon them when they are most needed.
We must be honest: We did not do enough to prevent this catastrophe. We hesitated to speak when early warnings were sounded. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled it plausible that Israel’s actions in Gaza could amount to genocide. Did Canada do enough to ensure that we were not complicit?
I am speaking in support of Senator Woo’s motion today because I believe we must acknowledge our actions and inactions. I also speak today because I believe we still have a duty to act. We must help those who survived to rebuild and recover. We cannot abandon the people of Gaza again.
Colleagues, I believe that healing is integral to recovery. After every atrocity, we learn the same lesson: If we focus only on infrastructure and if we ignore psychological repair, we leave societies fragile and divided for generations.
In Rwanda’s community-based sociotherapy, the “You heal me, I heal you” approach had significant benefits for mental health and social cohesion.
In my experience as a mental health professional, I have seen the importance of ongoing support in communities that experience tragedies. We know that suicidality becomes a prominent reality and must be addressed for many years following the tragedy. In this case, generations of psychological interventions will be required. We have an abundance of evidence on how to move forward. What we do not have is time.
I believe Canada must step up, learn from the past and lead international efforts for mental health recovery in Gaza and the West Bank, just as we once led on land mines and refugee resettlement.
We can fund humanitarian partners to provide mobile counselling clinics; to train, support and empower local mental health teams; and to ensure mental health is a pillar of all the work that will need to be done to help Gaza heal.
Women and children especially need focused support. A West Bank woman who spoke at an Oxfam panel this year told us:
We need the world to see that mental health is survival too. Food and shelter keep people alive. Mental health helps them live again.
Colleagues, we know what happens when we fail to act, and we know what can happen when we do. Canada has the capacity and credibility to help rebuild lives as well as homes.
We can make mental health support a cornerstone of recovery and help families find stability after so much loss. This motion is not only about looking back; it is also about acknowledging what kind of different roles we want Canada to play going forward.
I want to draw your attention to something I read in an article about former senator Roméo Dallaire, where he described his feelings as the genocide ended and he returned home, carrying the invisible trauma — the mental agony that was manifest through his experience.
The article said:
Already, in the immediate aftermath, Dallaire couldn’t sleep. His right arm was mysteriously fluctuating between sharp pain and paralysis. A voice in the back of his head was incessantly screaming, “Why is the rest of the world carrying on like nothing has happened?”
Colleagues, we cannot undo the past, but we can choose to be present now. We can choose to respond. We can choose to lead with care, decency and the humanitarian values we expect of ourselves.
All Palestinians have left is hope.
We cannot carry on like nothing has happened.
Meegwetch, marsee.
Honourable senators, I stand today to speak to Motion No. 13, presented to this chamber by Senator Yuen Pau Woo, which is proposing:
That, in light of findings and orders from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court on the situation in Gaza, the Senate call on the Government to examine the risk to Canada and Canadians of complicity in violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and to report on its findings within three months of the adoption of this motion.
In speaking to this motion, my goal is to look more closely with you at the framework of the international rule of humanitarian law and to encourage colleagues in this chamber to see that the inquiry recommended in this motion is worthy of this chamber and worthy of the Government of Canada, if only to back up years of frequent references by Canada’s cabinets and diplomatic corps affirming Canada’s commitment to defending and upholding the international rule of law. This motion is respectful of the words of Canada’s representatives on the world stage, and this motion returns to this chamber the opportunity to invite Canada to match the standards set in these words with responsible self-examination.
I invite you to join me as I look briefly at some key components of the international rule of humanitarian law, of which Canada speaks as a defender, which are implicit in Senator Woo’s Motion No. 13.
There is the case of South Africa v. Israel. The International Court of Justice, or ICJ, is the United Nations court composed of 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Security Council by voting simultaneously but separately. In order to be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes in both bodies.
Judges must be elected from among persons of high moral character who possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices or are jurists of recognized competence in international law.
The court may not include more than one national of the same state. Moreover, the court as a whole must represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world. Once elected, a member of the court is a delegate neither of the government of their own country nor of that of any other state.
Unlike most other organs of international organizations, the court is not composed of representatives of governments. Members of the court are independent judges whose first task, before taking up their duties, is to make a solemn declaration in open court that they will exercise their powers impartially and conscientiously. The current court is made up of judges from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Romania, Slovakia, Uganda and the United States.
The case before the ICJ on the issue of Palestine and Israel is known in short form as South Africa v. Israel. The full title is Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
South Africa is far from alone in asking the ICJ to examine the Genocide Convention. It is joined by several dozen other countries, including Ireland, Spain, Brazil and China. So far, the ICJ has ruled on several provisional measures directing Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah and ensure basic measures such as food, water and clothing are available.
Almost two years ago, in the order of January 26, 2024:
. . . the Court also found that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa under the Genocide Convention and for which it is seeking protection were plausible, namely the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts mentioned in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention.
The court went on to state:
. . . in conformity with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, Israel must immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
In addition to South Africa’s case before the ICJ as the UN court, the United Nations General Assembly, or UNGA, the governing body of the United Nations with 193 member states, requested an advisory opinion from the court on its obligations in terms of the genocide in Palestine.
On December 19, 2024, UNGA adopted the advisory opinion, which assessed the evidence of genocide in Palestine. The court concluded that the “. . . State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful . . .” and:
. . . the State of Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible . . .
This advisory opinion from the ICJ also laid out the legal consequences for UN member states if they are complicit in the genocide. Israel did not consent to the jurisdiction of the court to give this advisory opinion. However, the court retains jurisdiction to give this opinion because it is not a bilateral dispute but an advisory opinion on legal consequences requested by the UN governing body, UNGA.
The court noted that since Resolution 181(II) in 1947, the General Assembly has had a permanent responsibility toward the question of Palestine. The court also found that the Security Council does not have exclusive jurisdiction under the United Nations Charter to address issues of international peace and security.
The court summarized the work done by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice on the question of Palestine and Israel since 1947, noting that Israel has been constructing illegal settlements in Palestinian land since 1967 and concluding that:
All legislative and administrative actions taken by Israel to change the status of the City of Jerusalem, including expropriation of land and properties, transfer of populations and legislation aimed at the incorporation of the occupied section, are totally invalid and cannot change that status.
In its opinion to the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice found:
The fact that an occupation is prolonged does not in itself change its legal status under international humanitarian law. Although premised on the temporary character of the occupation, the law of occupation does not set temporal limits that would, as such, alter the legal status of the occupation. . . .
It continued, stating:
With regard to the right to self-determination, the court considers that, while it is for the General Assembly and the Security Council to pronounce on the modalities required to ensure an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the full realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, all states must co-operate with the United Nations to put those modalities into effect.
As recalled in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations:
Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle . . .
This is General Assembly Resolution 2625.
Now I would like to turn to a brief discussion of the International Criminal Court, or ICC. Canada contributed significantly to the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court. This is not a UN court. It is an independent, permanent court of last resort with jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes of international concern — namely, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Canada became the first country in the world to incorporate the obligations of the Rome Statute into its national laws when it adopted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. On November 21, 2024, the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of Israel’s prime minister, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mr. Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The extensive evidence cited by the court includes:
The effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known, and have been confirmed by multiple witnesses interviewed by [the Office of the prosecutor], including local and international medical doctors. They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women. . . .
Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population. That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law. Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal.
I’ll now return to Senator Woo’s Motion No. 13 to note that the central concern is that Canada and Canadians are at risk of being found to be accomplices or allies in what is increasingly being seen as a genocide under the international rule of law.
Up until recently, Canada, as confirmed by Global Affairs Canada, was still supplying Israel with arms and weapons parts. Only last month did Canada’s Prime Minister recognize Palestine as its own state, despite Canada supporting the United Nations’ decades-long call consistent with the 1947 two-state solution stipulating the creation of two separate states.
In essence, this motion calls on senators to urge the Government of Canada to dedicate attention and resources to mobilize the expertise of lawyers, scholars and experiential authorities to examine the degree to which —
Senator McPhedran, the time allowed for debate has expired.
May I have 60 seconds?
Is leave granted, honourable senators?
Thank you very much.
As the United Nations and the International Court of Justice continue to find violations of international humanitarian law by Israel, Canada needs to ensure that it is complying with its international obligations as a member state under treaties that Canada has signed and ratified, treaties that make up the international rule of law, including the Genocide Convention. Thank you. Meegwetch.
Would the honourable senator take a question?
The senator asked for 60 seconds, and leave was granted. Is Senator McPhedran asking for more time for questions?
If the chamber permits.
Is leave granted, honourable senators?
Thank you. I’ll try to be brief because a lot of things have been said on this issue in this debate, and there’s a lot of revisionist history.
Senator McPhedran, you’re a learned person. You definitely understand the history and the importance of history. Modern‑day Gaza was under colonial rule by the British prior to 1948. Before that, for hundreds of years, it was under Ottoman rule. Before that, before the word “Palestinian” ever existed in the lexicon of the Hellenic people who occupied that part of the world once upon a time — and the Philistines were there before them —in what portion of the history of mankind was there ever a Palestinian state, established, self-governed and recognized by the international community?
Thank you very much for the question, Senator Housakos. As much as I enjoy the long-range historical overview, let me begin in 1947 with the United Nations and the international law establishing a Palestinian territory and also the recognition of the State of Israel. Everything that I said in my speech, mostly quoted from judgments, makes it clear that the existing international humanitarian law, to which Canada has signed on and been a leader in many ways, is being violated in the opinion of the world’s judicial experts.
Now, Senator Housakos, we’ve had some conversations about the UN. I know it’s not your favourite place. However, it is the existing organization in which Canada, over and over again, has shown respect, signed treaties, made commitments and, in particular, promised to uphold the international rule of humanitarian law.
